


A Place To Rest (Part 3/?)

by rubycrowned



Series: A Place to Rest [3]
Category: 1D - Fandom, One Direction, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Good, M/M, but just to clarify, it isn't, ok, so by now presumably you know that the death isn't one of the boys, ziam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-30
Updated: 2012-06-30
Packaged: 2017-11-08 20:34:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/447280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rubycrowned/pseuds/rubycrowned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Do you know where your love is? Do you think that you lost it? You felt it so strong, but nothing's turned out how you wanted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Place To Rest (Part 3/?)

**Author's Note:**

> So I wanted to get this one up and out of the way so I could get a headstart tackling the next one. Aha. Good joke, Sarah. Anyway here's this one. Thanks for being amazing and getting back to me so quick on this Ari, you're fab. And the song is the same as the last chapter (although it fits this one sososo much better, last time I was just lazy), aka 'You Could Be Happy' by Snow Patrol :)
> 
> AND I figured I should also point out that I post all my fic on livejournal too, if you prefer reading on there. My username is ruby_crowned

The morning of the funeral, there was a chill to the overcast day; a reminder that summer was now over.   


Zayn sat with Niall, Louis and Harry in the row second from the front, directly behind Danielle and Liam’s families. From his position closest to the aisle, Zayn brushed fingers lightly against Liam’s in support as he walked woodenly towards his own seat, choosing to ignore the polished, flower-laden casket before them.

It was strange, being there. It was the same church - Danielle’s family’s – where the couple had been married; Zayn’s only other experience within its walls. And to return, not yet four years since, for  _this_ , it wasn’t right, not by any stretch of the imagination. Especially not as Zayn caught glimpses of a small girl with her mother’s hair giggling as she was bounced in her paternal grandmother’s lap and photos of a smiling Danielle stared back at them from a slideshow on the wall. Especially when the same girl became sick of this game and began grizzling quietly into her grandmother’s jacket, wanting to know when “Mummy” would be there, and Zayn could see the muscles in her father’s shoulders tense.

The service began, and Zayn was sure it was beautiful, moving, devastating to match the tragedy of a life lost young. He couldn’t say for sure though, for he spent the duration with his eyes fixed to the back of Liam’s neck, watching every twitch and shudder ripple through it, and sending what strength he could, hoping that it might be enough.

Louis would nudge him whenever it was time for him to show some sort of attention, lend his voice in the soft chorusing of a hymn, voice tripping over the unfamiliar tunes, but picked up fast enough not to draw attention. Even then, his eyes would only flicker as often as absolutely necessary from his friend to the programme being wrinkled in his hands.

Then it was time for Liam’s eulogy.

When Zayn had turned up on Liam’s doorstep, the other man had looked so much younger than his 24 years; now, stepping up to the lectern, Liam looked as though he had aged ten years.

“I...” Liam faltered, bloodshot eyes staring blindly out at the gathering. Zayn’s whole body twitched with the urge to go to him, hide him, protect him.

Liam closed his eyes briefly, thumb and forefinger pressing against his eyelids as if to hold back the emotions welled up behind them. When they reopened, they fluttered around the room until they came to settle on Zayn. Zayn, who gave him the smallest of nods as he stared back with a face of solemnity, eyes wide with concern.

Zayn was never sure what Liam said in his speech – he knew it was love; love and grief, dripping from every syllable, each laboured intake of breath, and what mattered other than that? The individual words were unimportant. And he knew that the entire time, Liam’s eyes never left Zayn’s; a point to anchor him, a point to draw strength from.

Even when Zayn doubted Liam could see his face anymore, voice thick as tears spilled down his cheeks to drip onto the neglected cue cards before him, his gaze burned through Zayn, whose own eyes stung as tears pricked the corners in sympathy (and his own sadness, of course, he was upset too, he was). Zayn had a feeling that other people may have been staring a little by the end, could feel Louis’ hand warm on his knee, squeezing gently, but he couldn’t care less. Fuck them all, he was here for Liam and he cared a whole lot more that Liam got through today than what a bunch of strangers and acquaintances thought of the interaction.

When Liam sat back down, Zayn cursed the fact that he was just beyond the reach of placing a hand on Liam’s shoulder. But when he turned his head to give Zayn a shaky smile, Zayn returned it, and some of the pressure within him seemed to release.

***

The burial was worse, and better.

Worse, because there was something so final in the lowering of the casket, in the act of tossing a rose in after it, a whispered _farewell_. Because this time, Liam’s tears weren’t silent, restrained; they wracked his body, deafening Zayn whose hearing narrowed ‘til he could hear nothing but the raw pain.

Better, because this time Zayn could move to stand behind his friend, because this time Liam turned enough to grip onto Zayn, for Zayn to wrap his arms around Liam’s shoulders and hold him close, hold him together; feel the shudders calm ever so slightly as his body muffled their impact. Because there were fewer people here, and rather than shooting judgemental looks at Zayn, all he could see was sympathy in the creased faces around him, the odd nod of approval.

It was an almost unconscious instinct to reach up and knot his fingers into the only half-tamed hair, to card his fingers through it as he made soothing sounds, murmured into Liam’s space. It stabbed something deep inside him, hurt, but felt right.

It was better, and worse.

***

Eventually, there was quiet.

The family and friends, who swarmed Liam’s house, devouring sandwiches and savouries, only to replace them with casseroles and pies to stock the overflowing freezer, had finally left. Left the house large and echoing.

Liam’s family remained; they would stay a couple more days, until work, husbands, commitments tugged them away once more. But they too had ventured upstairs to their respective beds, drained by the day’s events.

Zayn was going to be sleeping on the couch that night; Liam’s house was big, but not that big, and in a way Zayn preferred it this way. The sofa was large, dangerously comfy when trying to stay awake for a movie; Zayn could almost pretend that that was all this was – a visit which lasted late enough into the night that it made more sense to stay then go back to his own cold, empty flat. He supposed that was still an option too, but it felt so wrong to leave now, like it would require fighting a pull he had no energy, or inclination, to resist.

Even Anastasia was finally sleeping peacefully in her room, after more than a little struggling to get her there. The child wanted her mother, had never spent so long without her, and knew, in her infinite youth, that something wasn’t right, just not what. And after a day of being dressed up, hushed, juggled between various family members, some familiar and some not, this need was only more obvious. Zayn didn’t think Liam had explained to her yet where Danielle had gone, that she wouldn’t be back to tuck her in, to make her breakfast in the morning; Zayn didn’t know how you were supposed to ever  _try_  explain something like that, a task which must be just as difficult to carry out for Liam’s own emotions as to get a two-year-old to understand it.

For now though, it was quiet, and everything else could wait.

Zayn lay sprawled on the couch, not ready for sleep just yet, but eyeing Liam cautiously through half-closed eyelids, who was sat perched on the chair towards Zayn’s feet. His hands were wrapped tightly around a cup of tea - which Zayn was certain must be cold by now – and he was staring off into blankness. Zayn refused to push the silence though; god knew that Liam hadn’t had enough of it the past week, and he actually might have been dozing off when-

“Do you think she’s happy?” The words were tentative, but almost child-like in their earnestness.

Zayn tried to resist the urge to move, change positions to sit closer to Liam, see his face more clearly, afraid that in doing so he would break whatever spell had Liam bring up the subject he had been almost studiously avoiding.

“I...I don’t know, Li, but...I can’t bring myself to doubt it,” Zayn spoke slowly, hushed, considering what Liam needed to hear and also unable to lie to his best friend, even when it might be a kindness. “I hope so.”

“Me too,” Liam’s voice cracked, and Zayn closed his eyes on the harsh intake of breath following it, a dry sob wracking Liam’s body.

Thinking that might have been it, Zayn slowly levered himself into a sitting position, knuckles pressed into the sofa cushions about to scoot himself to Liam’s end of the couch, when Liam spoke again, and Zayn froze.

“She wasn’t when she died, you know,” he says it somewhere between matter of fact and disbelieving, followed by a hysterical giggle, quickly strangled, “Happy, I mean.”

All Zayn wants is to be able to tell him  _No, you can’t know that, can’t even_ think _that, ok_ , but he senses this is something Liam wants to, needs to, get out, let spill from him before it cracks him. So he keeps still, silent. Waits.

“Did they tell you that it was Harry who had to tell me?” Zayn swallowed, then nodded jerkily, wondering where this was going; the no one had elaborated on that part of the story, which Zayn found curious, but sort of realised that none of them would be able to answer him if he did question it.

“We fought the night she died. We’d been fighting a bit lately, I guess, more than we used to, anyway. But this time was worse. We yelled,  _I_  yelled,” and Zayn raised his eyebrows slightly because that was something he could count the occurrences of on his fingers, “and it was stupid, because there wasn’t even anything  _to_  fight about. It was that we were tired, and the washing hadn’t been ironed, and had Ana been feeling feverish because we couldn’t risk her getting another chest infection, and we just  _exploded_.”

“Liam, just because you guys had a fight doesn’t mean-”

“I told her to leave. I don’t know why. I just...I was so  _angry_ , and I didn’t know why, but I just told her that she should go, clear her head, see a friend, whatever, just, away from me. And she did. Said something about visiting Kerri, not to worry if she didn’t come home that night, ‘If that was something that would worry you, anyway’,” Liam’s eyes were shining bright with unshed tears, and Zayn’s surprised they hadn’t fallen yet, “There was no goodbye, no ‘I love you’, nothing. Just anger, and hurt, and then...then I unplugged the phone, switched off my cell.”

Zayn had managed to move slowly to the point where now he was able to remove the stone-cold tea from Liam’s grasp, instead enclosing Liam’s hands with his own, squeezing tightly,  _I’m here, and it’s not enough, but I’m here._

“And so the police couldn’t get hold of you?” he questioned softly.

“I just didn’t want to  _fight_  anymore,” Liam stared up at Zayn suddenly, desperately, “and if she couldn’t talk to me, then neither of us could say anything else we’d regret.”

“Li, it’s not-”

“ _Louis_ had to answer the phone call.  _Louis._ And he, he couldn’t do it, had to get Harry- they  _shouldn’t have had to do that._ ” There was a hard glint in Liam’s eyes, and Zayn could almost hear the unspoken, self-deprecating  _that_ was  _my fault_  between them.

As much as Zayn wanted to, he couldn’t find the words, a way to release that burden from Liam, didn’t think there was a way to stop him from punishing himself for something he had no control over. So he returned to silence – something Zayn seemed to be getting good at – and made do with rubbing circles with his thumbs into the insides of Liam’s wrist, feeling the erratic flutter of a distressed heartbeat.

When Liam next spoke, breaking the fragile silence, it was barely a whisper, and beyond broken, shattered.

“I don’t want to close my eyes. All I see is angry words, her face as she left. She wasn’t happy, Zayn, and all I dream of is her in her last moments.” Tears are falling now, wet against their intertwined hands. “They said it wasn’t her fault, that the guy was drunk, but...she was speeding too, she could’ve had time to react, to get out of the road, but she didn’t. And in my dreams, her face is the same as when she left, angry tears in her eyes, and what if that’s what happened? That she was going too fast because she was mad at me, and she couldn’t see what was happening until it was too late? What if I killed her, Zayn?”

This was too much for Zayn, and he gathered the other man under his arm, and bundled him onto the sofa until they were both lying down, Zayn’s chest cushioning Liam’s head, and slowly being dampened by a steady flow of salty tears.

“You  _did not_  kill her, Liam. You  _didn’t_ , okay? It was some fucker who had more booze than sense and it is. Not. Your. Fault.” Zayn nearly hissed the words over the top of Liam’s head, insistent fingers pressing into Liam’s back to try and reinforce his words. “You can’t think like that. You just...you can’t.”

Liam buried his face further into Zayn. “Sometimes the dreams are worse,” and Zayn has to strain to catch the muffled words, spoken like a confession, “Sometimes...this is the dream. I catch her scent on the pillow as I’m waking up, or I walk around the house and see her favourite mug sitting on the coffee table, and, just for a second, none of its true.

And then I remember.”

Zayn can’t do anything but pull Liam impossibly closer. He can’t speak anymore, his own throat choked up, thick with tears; he’s stopped trying to analyse why they don’t feel like they’re for Danielle. He can only try to express in his embrace the things he can’t say, probably can’t even do, no matter how hard he tries.

Keep him safe; from the world, from the truth.

Let him know; it’s over, he will be okay, will get through this; I will be here for you.

That part at least, he could honour.

_I’m here. I’m not going anywhere._

***

**Author's Note:**

> I /promise/ it's gonna start getting happier from here on out...Also, quick question: how many of you actually listen to the songs I base these around (ever)? And would it make any difference at all if I linked you to the songs (because I recognise the effort in having to open youtube and searching for it aha). I don't mind if you don't, I was just curious, so I'd love it if you could let me know in the comments :)


End file.
